Ghost Town
by Downside-Left
Summary: Cam, alone in the Jeffersonian, post season-5 finale. H/A, B/B.


Disclaimer: not mine

Title: Ghost Town

Summary: Cam, alone in the Jeffersonian, post season-5 finale. H/A, B/B.

A/N: This is probably gonna be one of my last posts for a while. Real-Life is killin' me. Also, laptop-viruses are GAHH because they are. That is all. Please read/review!

…

It's Friday morning, and, as always, Cam walks into the lab at 8:30 on the dot.

But it's different today.

Even though there are still people milling around the lab, the interns and the assistants, it still feels… deserted.

Cam shakes her head at her own foolishness. _'There are dozens of people in this room,'_ she thinks to herself. _'Just because a few of the… regular cast members are gone, doesn't mean everything's changed.'_

'_Denial,'_ Angela's voice says in her head, and Cam can almost see the artist's cheerful grin.

'_Yep, I'd have to agree with you,'_ imaginary-Hodgins replies.

'_Dr. Saroyan is merely attempting to recreate an environment where, anthropologically speaking, she felt comfortable,'_ Dr. Brennan protests as Cam heads to her office. _'It's perfectly natural.'_

'_Natural my ass,'_ pretend-Seeley retorts immediately. _'Personally, I think she's gone nuts. No offense, Cam.'_

Cam runs a hand over her hair, struggling to ignore the imaginary argument her absent friends are having in her head.

She pauses, and considers that statement again.

'_Maybe pretend-Seeley is right. Maybe I _am_ losing it,'_ she thinks, only half-kidding.

'_Come on, Cam, you're not crazy, you just miss us,'_ not-Angela laughs. _'It's totally normal.'_

'_No, hearing voices in your head is, by definition, _not_ normal,'_ imaginary-Hodgins cracks, and she can hear the grin in his imaginary voice.

Cam scowls and leaves her office, trying to leave the clearly-unreal voices behind her. But, since they're in her head, they follow unerringly.

And the rest of the lab is just as full of echoes of the past as her office was.

Hodgins' station. She can still see him sitting at his computer, running particulates through some scan or other, bickering with Zach or one of the interns, making cow eyes at Angela when he thought that no one (including Angela) was looking.

Angela's office. Countless hours staring at one computer simulation after another. Endless, widespread, good-natured bickering over whether or not Art made Science her bitch, again. Angela mooning after Hodgins when he wasn't paying attention.

Brennan's office. Always Booth and Brennan, always together. Just not in the way that they should have been.

Cam's traitor-feet take her to the Bone Room, the place she always thinks of, even now, as Zach's station.

'_It started when he left,'_ she thinks, refusing to say, even to herself, 'killed someone and went to the mental institution forever and ever'.

'_Denial'_, not-Angela whispers again, but Cam firmly shuts the voices out of her head.

That day, two years ago, she'd lost a piece of herself. Just as, yesterday, she'd lost four more pieces.

True, they're supposedly all coming back in a year, but it still hurts. And they might not come back, anyway.

Hodgins and Angela might want to stay in Paris (the artist has always wanted to live there, and the entomologist is putty in her hands).

Brennan might go back to pure academia, for good (she's been hit hard by the cases recently, and may not want to come back to it).

And Booth –

Will. Be. Fine.

Cam deliberately turns her thoughts away from her friend/ex-flame. The thought of something –

NO.

No, Booth will be fine. Like always. He's always fine. Nothing can hurt Booth for long. He's… he'll be fine.

If she closes her eyes, she can remember happier days. Sitting at the diner. All of them. Together. Happy. Sane. In Washington D.C., with no plans to leave.

She knows it'll never happen again. Zach is gone, forever. The others might never come home.

She is alone in the Jeffersonian.

The institution had once been a haven for her. The chance to work with the country's finest scientists, the opportunities….

Now this place is just a ghost town, filled with echoes of what she had once had, and what she'd lost.

Just a ghost town.

…

A/N: Because going away for a year is stupid. And that is all.


End file.
